Tag Archives: mirrors

Today’s reveal is something that I have been working on for some time. It doesn’t hurt that while preparing, it allowed me a lot of trips to thrift stores, something that The Kid and I enjoy immensely. I was collecting toys and trinkets for these mirrors:

The vertical mirror was first (above) and then the horizontal one (below) was next.The photos may be a little confusing as I set the mirrors up to reflect the other… but the first is in portrait and the other in landscape mode.

I started working on the ‘portrait’ mode first… and didn’t expect to do more than just this one. I had picked up a framed mirror in my travels and thought it would be fun to do this. I looked for small, fun objects and toys and used hot glue gun to attach the items. It was just a hit or miss as to what fit and looked good.

I won’t spend too much time talking about them, they are both pretty straightforward. I will mention that The Kid built the frame for the second mirror. I had so many toys that I needed to do a second one. I am keeping eyes open for more ‘stuff‘ that would allow me to complete a third.

Like this:

Have I told you how much I love CraigsList? In my city, it is amazingly active, including the Free section. For instance, a few weeks ago, I picked up four Victrola cabinets from a man who restores them… but it often took many different units to get enough parts to get a single player in working condition. He had accumulated quite a few and apparently one night, it was more than he could store.

You can see that he still had a few more that he had to give away. Those four were enough for me. 🙂

So, I have finished the first two. One for me and one to sell. Let’s start with the one for sale. It would be the one to the furthermost right in the photo. The top was in decent condition, so it was sanded down to the original wood. Following, it received several coats of a dark turquoise color. I was careful to paint only the body. As I said, I sanded the top down to a beautiful wood grain, so I gave it two coats of a walnut stain followed by two coats of polyurethane. The top just shines.

I fitted the right side (where the megaphone and the actual phonograph had been) with a plastic tub for ice. I found one that fit almost perfectly, adding a ledger for the lip of the tub to rest.

All of the interior wood was cleaned and a coat of walnut to enhance the existing wood finish. This thing was in absolutely beautiful condition. I added the brushed nickel knobs to complete the cabinet. I had wanted to purchase some old decanters and at least one set of high ball glasses and maybe some champagne class to set a nicer stage for photos, but the whole idea of this thing is to make money – as much as possible.

I picked up three mirrors a couple of years back from Penney’s outlet store, they were $200 originally and marked down to their final price of $20! When I saw them, I couldn’t say no, even though their wood finishes were very scratched. My instinct was to paint them anyway, so I had purchased all three. I painted one with the same paint as the cabinet and am selling them as a pair.

A few more photos of the cabinet for your viewing pleasure.

I have another almost finished that I have decided to keep. I will show you that one soon. The next project I finished though, is this nice vanity… well, the finished product is nice anyway. It was in pretty bad shape with I picked it up though. This one took quite a bit of work to get it to the point of being able to paint it.

I had determined to do something different this time, rather than the standard pink or (off) white. Lots of young girls like pink, but there are probably about just as many who like purple. So I started with a purple I had in stock.

After the first coat of this particular purple, I thought that it looked a little too much on the red side of purple, so I purchased a purple that leaned toward blue spectrum and started the painting process all over again.

I also added the wood detail on all four of the drawers as well as the rope trim, since sanding required most of the original trim to be removed. I also purchased a piece of quarter inch glass for the shelf in between the cabinets. I think this came out really beautiful.

One of these days I am going to have to figure out how to take good photos of furniture with mirrors. I always seem to get a reflection of the weirdest stuff when I take them!

Here it is in all of its purple glory! I have these two pieces listed on CraigsList and hopefully they will sell quickly. I am working on one more, almost done and then there are two more that I have to get started on.

It seems that I have so little spare time these days that I have to make a decision between doing projects and writing about them. It seems incredible that it has been a whole month since my last post. Not a good way to building a blog following, huh?

Anyway, have been making some progress, although as I told the Kid earlier, it seems like I can’t seem to get anything completed, only started. Let me give you a quick update on the doll house.

The interior walls have been painted and the floors in the kitchen and bedroom have been stained. I knew using a nice grade of plywood that it would be beneficial in the end. I am leaning towards staining the entire outside of the dollhouse, make it kind of a nice piece of furniture. Not completely sure, as I had thought about making it look more like a house with windows and doors and siding and such, but then, figured that the sheer size of it would require it to sit against a wall or in a corner of two walls and then you wouldn’t even see the outside of it. I guess it will depend on how I feel when I get to that point.

I’ve also got the upper cabinets installed in the kitchen. Wow, had a bit of an issue getting them in to look good. I actually made the cabinets a single piece, gluing them together and giving the back and underneath support rather than installing each piece individually. Did the same with the lower cabinets, and they are ready to go in now that the floor is done.

Its a bit funny but it almost looks like a real house with construction going on in the kitchen… with the appliances having been moved to a different room. The floors hadn’t been done in this photo, but shortly after this, we moved the house to the garage and three coats of an oak color were applied.

The other project worked on was a sofa for the living room. I started with the dimensions of 24″ long, about 10″ tall and a seat depth of 6″. We first cut all the pieces and layed them out. Then we used a piece of leftover plywood for the frame and with the pneumatic nail gun and Elmer’s glue, we made quick work of piecing it together.

Here is the finished frame. Got done about 11:00 on Saturday night and figured I could work on it today (Sunday). But each time I walked by it, there was just something not right about it. It measured over 24″ once the sides were added and then there is the dowels on top of that. I had an epiphany that at that length, it wouldn’t even fit sideways in the house, which is only 24″ deep. It was simply too long.

We could make it shorter, but since I am a staunch user of both glue and nails, I knew it would not come apart easily. Then it dawned on me, we could just cut it exactly in half and make two! So that’s what we did, recreating the sides/arms. Now they are both ready for foam and upholstery. (See? One more thing started but not finished. Sigh!)

A while back, while the Kid and I were out abandoned house hunting, we ran across an old barn full of those old telephone wire insulators… and we managed to find about a two dozen in pretty good shape. We cleaned them up and I desperately tried to figure out something to do with them. I had been experimenting with paint that made glass looked like stained glass (I *think* that I forgot to write about it… I can’t seem to find it in my previous posts.). Anyway, each insulator got three coats of the stained glass paint to get nice even coverage. Thought that they would be interesting sitting on a glass shelf in front of the large window in the office, but I’ve yet to get to that either! Sigh.

But they are sitting in front of the window near the floor, waiting for the shelf. Eventually, I am thinking that the light streaming will make nice colorful splashes around the room. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos:

Yesterday I ran across a ‘how to’ for using these insulators in wall sconces, which I am excited about trying. But I’ve vowed not to start anything else until the dollhouse and accessories are finished. Whew!

Okay, that’s about it for now. I do have a few more things to share with you… things that had been completed some time ago. I re-did this beautiful dresser and vanity with a mirror, but it took ages to sell. In fact, I couldn’t sell it for the longest time painted only in pink, so I reached back into my magical bag of tricks and the Kid and I painted multi-colored dots on it. Finally, it sold. Had to drop the price twice though. Must not be the right time for selling furniture on Craigslist, at least not in Kansas City.

Okay, so tomorrow is another work day, so am going to say good night and thank you for stopping by. And as always, keep making beautiful things!